Natalie's Rap

Akiva, can I just say something I've noticed?

Yeah.

Ever since you got COVID, put you on Front Street, the way your hair and face looks to me is when we were younger.

Like you look the way that we looked when we lived in L.A.

before we got SNL.

That's right.

So Andy, are you saying that maybe one of Akiva's symptoms is that COVID for him is like a fountain of youth?

I think it's entirely possible.

There's a lot of new variants.

We don't know what the side effects are.

Yeah, you don't know what they do.

Yeah.

And that is a great way of phrasing it too, because it's not making light of any of the previous variants that have caused awful, awful harm to the world.

Yeah, this is more.

We're moving on while acknowledging that happened.

We're also moving on and saying there might be a whole new chapter

where it's just a time machine back 20 years.

It's like, what if Contagion was a happy movie?

You know?

Yeah, that was how it was originally pitched.

There's this virus, and it makes everyone look younger and do podcasts.

Now, Andy, since we're talking about how, and again, we're very cognizant of the fact that this is a non-visual medium, but can I make an observation about you, Andy?

Yes, please.

You show up on screen every time we do one of these podcasts, like you've just emerged from a cave

for a year.

You look in the screen like you've never seen a computer before.

That's right.

Like you're half man, half ape, and everything is foreign to you.

Yeah.

You zoom from a room that looks like it's lit for a murder mystery party.

That's right.

Your energy is kind of Sandler Uncut Gems.

Like frayed at the edges.

Well, I've definitely gotten Sandler many times, but never Uncut Gems version.

So that means A, I'm getting much better at acting.

Yep.

And B, older, looking older.

And more manic.

And the goatee.

More manic, a little hairier, a little dicier decision making.

You know what's interesting about Uncut Gems is, spoiler alert, other than the fact he dies at the end, it seems like it's going great.

It really is that fine line that as long as the bookie doesn't kill you, it was a happy ending.

That's how them safties fuck with you.

Yep.

It's in the margins, you know.

Could have been a really triumphant ending.

That's what they say.

It only takes one unreasonable bookie.

That's one of the knocks on gambling.

Yeah, and if the boogies don't get you, the weekend will.

Lonely Island and Seth Meyer's podcast.

So, hey, everybody, welcome to episode six of Seth Meyers and the Lonely Island podcast, where we granularly discuss the digital shorts.

And it's been a bit of a layoff.

Let's just be honest to our listeners.

Three of us are going to sound a little bit more grizzled and Akiva is going to sound way younger because he got the good COVID.

That's right.

The de-aged.

He got that good, good.

That good, good.

Akiva, it is nice that you're feeling better.

You had it for a while, right?

Yeah, I had it for about two weeks.

I didn't like it at all.

I had managed to avoid it this whole time, this whole like two and a half years.

What was the worst part of it?

The brain fog was legit, but I will say, if I knew it was going to end, if it wasn't scary, it was not unpleasant.

It was just like being a little high all the time.

I was just a little stupid.

I kind of liked it.

Would you say you were a little stupid spelled S-T-O-O-P-I-D?

100%, yes.

I'm still a little stupid from it, to be perfectly honest.

Would little be L-I-L with an apostrophe?

I think it's like Whittle, like W-I-D-D-L-E.

Oh, a Whittle, stupid.

Yeah.

So you are a Whittle stupid.

Yeah.

That's adorable.

It's so natural how you guys fall into rap terminology.

Yeah, like Whittle.

I wouldn't even call it rap terminology at this point, but it is fun for us to see you cope with it.

What's your favorite rapper?

Would you say it's Whittle Wayne?

I mean, I feel like the whole rap world breaks differently if instead of Generation of Lil's, it was Whittles.

Definitely.

I would vote for that.

Like less popular.

Yeah, less popular.

Yeah.

I don't think it takes off in the same way.

Yeah, yeah.

I agree with that.

Speaking of rap, we're going to talk about a seminal moment in celebrity rap history.

We're talking March 4th, 2006.

The host is Natalie Portman.

This is our first real host being a major part of a digital short in a way that it pops.

Obviously, we've had hosts in digital shorts up to this moment, but she's the star of it, right?

Oh, yeah.

100%.

It's called Natalie's Rap.

She has ownership of it.

How does it come to pass?

By the way, you just said it's called Natalie's Rap, which is true.

And I'm looking at the YouTube clip that I pulled up to watch it, and it just definitely says Natalie raps.

Oh.

Oh.

So it's either Natalie's rap or Natalie raps.

Well, we have the show rundown.

I believe it's Natalie's rap.

This podcast is just a way for us to figure out ways to complain about stuff to NBC.

By the way, the rundown says Natalie rap.

Oh, neither.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

Natalie rap sounds more like what it would have been called to me.

Yeah, we definitely would never have put an S.

There would never be an S at the end of raps.

Here's a question that no one will care about or find interesting but us.

Perfect.

We would never really name them.

They would come to us while editing and be like, what's this one called for the rundown?

Correct.

There was no need to name it.

It doesn't tell you when you're watching SNL live on NBC, there's no name that comes up for the thing.

So it was only an internal document.

And then the internet made it that all of a sudden you had to actually give things real names.

Right.

We're just excusing ourselves a little.

That's why it's called like Natalie rap, Natalie's rap, or Natalie raps.

Yeah, like that's not a good name for a song.

Those are good words if you're entering it into an internet search field.

Yeah, that's true.

That's correct.

But I will also say if anything is called blank rap, it's not a good rap, generally speaking.

Usually means the people in charge of it don't understand what rap music is at all.

So just know we chose it for the rundown, not for the world.

You need to know it's a rap song.

Yeah.

You have such a lack of confidence in your rap that you want your listeners to know by the title.

Yeah.

Before Natalie's rap, it was like Flintstones rap.

Yeah.

It's like Ronald Reagan rap.

Only genre it works at.

There was never a Flintstone country song.

No, there was a Flintstones rap in the Flintstones cereal, Fruity Pebbles commercial.

Yeah.

I think we all enjoy brands rapping.

If you get a good commercial rap, that's when you're cooking with gas.

Well, I'm the master rapper, and I'm here to say.

I love Fruity Pebbles in a major way.

He loves Fruity Pebbles in a major way.

Barney, Bonnie.

Barney's pretending to be the master rapper.

Simpler times, simpler, better times, right?

We all agree.

Yeah, yeah, Correct.

Yeah.

To answer your question, Seth.

Yeah, Natalie came in, was it on Monday and was like, hey, let's do a song.

And she wanted to do a rap song, as I recall, but we were like, I don't know if we can do that.

You got to come kind of hard if you're going to do that.

And then she started, as I recall, spitting some little Kim.

Seth, you're a Star Wars head.

Will you set the table, though?

Cause I think it's important to know the context of her celebrity at that moment to appreciate it.

Yes.

And the internet has done 15 years or more of these style jokes now since this.

But at this point, YouTube's like six months old at the most or something.

Oh, yeah.

Tell me about Natalie's celebrity at this moment.

Well, the only thing I'll say about Natalie is Star Wars is a major deal.

I don't think that's why any of us are psyched that Natalie Portman is there, right?

We kind of know her as a kick-ass actor from other things.

From the professional?

V for Vendetta.

She's there to promote V for Vendetta.

V for Vendetta, which is very exciting as well.

Also, I think the exciting thing, more for you guys than me, because as we've established, I'm a little bit older, but it is this really fun thing that now starts to happen for your tenure at the show when people that are sort of your age group come in and we sort of build a second SNL cast, which is celebrities who are the age of our current cast that then cross-pollinate with us really well for basically a decade.

And I feel like she's one of the first people that comes in because she obviously came in and had seen Lazy Sunday and known that this was something that you guys did that she thought she'd be good at.

And I do think it's really important to note this was not a thing that was happening all the time.

In a way, I would argue you guys opened a Pandora's box.

Agreed.

Natalie's rap was fantastic, and we're going to talk about how great it was, but it sired a lot of children.

It did.

A lot of celebs who didn't enjoy the works of Will Kim to the extent that Natalie did, who said, hey, look, Natalie's a dramatic actor or a non-rapper who's famous, who did a rap and everyone loved it.

I'm going to do that now

and did.

But also like SNL is always a place, right, where you go into like show what else you can do as an actor and mess with your image, right?

As a host.

Yes.

And I should note, this is a success story.

A lot of times actors come in.

and want to show the other thing they do.

And it turns out the reason we haven't seen it yet is it's bad and no one likes it.

Yes.

And that's, I think, why we were very nervous when she was like, I want to rap.

But we're like, oh, God.

Yeah.

We were massive fans of hers.

Yeah.

But yes, somebody coming in and asking to rap, including ourselves, as we pointed out, is usually bad news.

Yeah.

Now, Andy, obviously you're a fan of Natalie.

What happens when you hear the news that you're not going to be the star of this one?

Natalie is going to take the rapping duties.

Well, I mean, it was something we all figured out together.

It's not like I was waiting in a box to be told by the overlords what I would be performing that week.

She came into our office and was like, hey, I like Lazy Sunday, I believe.

And she was like, I love rap shit as well.

And we were like, really?

We think you're a great actor, but really?

And then she just, like you remember, said, she just started doing a little Kim verse and was very good and very convincing.

And it was a very filthy, if you recall.

Yeah.

It was a foul verse.

And we all just started dying laughing and being like, oh, yeah, that will really work.

No one is going to see this coming.

And we just immediately started writing it.

I should note that what's built into the Natalie rap is that moment because it starts with Chris Barnell interviewing her.

We're sitting here today with film star Natalie Portman.

Hello.

So Natalie, what's a day in the life of Natalie Portman like?

Do you really want to know?

Please tell us.

I don't sleep motherfuckers off that yak and that turbine doing 120 getting ooh while I'm swerving.

Damn Natalie, you a crazy chick.

You shut the f up and suck my d.

I bust and do bounce like gushes.

That's classic Akiva table setting.

Akiva's great at you tell him like, this is what I want to happen.

And then he goes, well, no one will understand what that means.

There's no context.

And then we go, okay, well, how do we do context then?

And he goes, I don't know, like the bad idea would be blah, blah, blah, blah.

And we go, all right, cool, let's do that.

Yeah.

That's often now his first knee-jerk joke pitch.

Me and Andy are like, yes.

No, it's always what it needs.

And that's from EZ E's No More Questions, though, we should say.

Also, that is the reason we came up with it is because Easy E's song, No More Questions, is exactly that format of him being interviewed and then going in and out of the song.

Yep.

And she's kind of doing an impression of Easy E in a very laid-back, yeah, okay.

So Easy, tell me, how is your life as a youngster?

Ruthless.

My style as a juvenile ran with a gang.

Slanged in the meanwhile, banging.

Well, and there's direct quotes from it, so it's an homage, let's say, not a rip-off.

Like the role model line is exactly a quote from the Easy E song, right?

Yes.

So it's sort of like an homage the way Documentary Now is an homage of some of my favorite Documentary Now, currently streaming.

Oh, is it time for plugs?

Look, I was just going to say.

What you got, Andy?

Hom strings on Hulu Now.

Brooklyn 99, probably Peacock.

I lost track.

So I do want to say Chris Barnell, again, unsung hero, so good in this.

Yeah.

Also, you mentioned Easy.

First of all, if you found out Chris Barnell has been 85 years old the whole time we've known him, you would believe it.

And you would also believe that he did all the white voices in every 80s rap.

He's the perfect, you know, sort of over officious, irritating white man.

Yeah, that's why he's Jerry on Rick and Morty.

Absolutely.

Oh, my God.

Now, this song, I thought I had a real familiarity for it.

Oh, I should also know.

I'm in it, you guys.

Is this our first?

Yeah, it is.

She slaps you, right?

She slaps me.

Hard.

I say, damn, Natalie, you a crazy chick.

And then she says, yo, to my face.

Yo, shut the fuck up and suck my dick.

That's right.

Now, yeah.

This was very exciting.

I got to sing a line.

I got to put on headphones like I'm wearing now and sing a rap line.

Very excited for me.

Well, I, by the way, tried to convince Lauren to call this Seth rap.

But I went back.

I thought I had a real familiarity with this song.

I remembered a lot of things.

I definitely forgot exactly how filthy it is.

Yeah.

It is mind-bogglingly, graphically filthy.

Had to be.

Had to be.

That That was the whole joke.

That was the whole angle.

Because it's not just suck my dick.

That's maybe one of the lighter lines in it.

Yeah.

Her little Kim lyrics that she spit were filthy.

And we were like, oh yeah, you got to go way harder than that.

She was a princess in those Star Wars movies.

And she had graduated from Harvard.

And everybody thought she was perfect.

Got to ruin that somehow.

Yep.

It had to go as far as it could go.

And now, was she in the room with you guys when you were writing the lyrics or did she just sort of give you carte blanche to go as dirty as you wanted?

I think it was carte blanche.

Yeah, i can't remember her actually being there i will say this i remember this one as a particularly hot sesh for keeve that they were just pouring out of him is that right i don't remember that yeah and then we all kind of fine-tuned together keeve you're also the filthiest part of i'm on a boat too i use a lot of bad words but i'm a pretty clean guy in general you saw the joke very clearly that's all i'll say like you wrote a lot of the lines that ended up in it And me and Jorm contributed, as always.

But I remember like the way that certain days, certain ones of of us were just more in the zone when we started writing, you know?

Yeah.

And you're a filthy fucking person.

What the hell?

I just think you get Natalie's voice.

Yeah, that too.

That's right.

Yeah.

I ghost wrote a lot of Black Swan.

Did you guys know that?

I think the fifth line of this rap.

Yeah.

We're fresh out of the gates.

The audience is just figuring out what's happening.

Is I bust in dudes' mouth like Gusher's motherfucker.

Yeah.

Roll up on MBC and smack the shit out of Jeff Zucker.

Nice shout out to Jeff Zucker.

That did not come from me.

That feels like an Andy.

That was me.

That was me lying.

Yeah.

I'd say that's one of my favorite lines, though.

There was a nice era at SNL where I feel like the audience also knew who was running the network.

You know what I mean?

I don't think you could get a Jeff Schell name drop in a current SNL rap song and have it land.

I mean, Jeff Zucker was basically asking to be in this song.

Yes.

Due to the unfortunate rhymes that his name inspires.

Well, to be fair nothing else rhymes with gusher with gushers with motherfucker nothing else rhymes that's why they never say motherfucker in rap exactly that's why you never listen to raps yeah you never hear the word motherfucker because nothing rhymes with it famously

no way this is again the current system that will remain in place forever now is no one sees these digital shorts until dress right what was

the censors reaction when they first laid eyes on this oh that's a great question.

I don't remember, but I do remember that's why we added the red bar over her mouth.

Yeah.

It was definitely like beeping's not enough.

We also don't want to see her mouth mouth the bad words.

And there's a great amount of graphical elements because of that.

Yeah.

She's constantly getting giant black bars over her mouth.

And I will say it works really well.

Yeah, it's like a censor thing.

Yeah, we would realize often with our censored versions of songs that actually beeps were sometimes the best because they are the most jarringly implying a real horrible cursing.

But wait, Seth, I want to ask you about Jeff Zucker for a second.

Had he been at NBC for a really long time or was this just an era where executives for some reason were famous?

He had been at NBC for a long time,

but there was a reason he was more famous than anyone today.

I don't quite know.

I mean, it's like Ted Sarandos.

You know who he is.

You could name check him in a song.

Yeah.

Do you guys want to come up with a rhyme for Sarandos?

Anybody?

Filthiest rhyme for Ted Sarandos?

I guess no.

You guys used to have a musical improv true.

It's been a while since there's been two.

No, that was not us.

That was not us.

No.

It would probably be like something about you Randos, you know?

Yeah.

Okay.

Well.

Like roll into a sex club, get railed by 10 Randos.

There you go.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, gave you a little bit of air there, and you really kind of landed it.

Yeah.

Seth, since I have you and I don't want to have to text you, I bailed on the spelling be too short.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah.

This is a good time to get some other business accomplished.

Normally I text him my result.

This is the New York Times spelling bee, everyone.

Yeah, I'm not going to say what the two words were because then people could know what the date is and be like, what?

They recorded it when?

So now I also think when you go back and watch it, the audience, it takes them a minute to figure out what's going on here, right?

And then they love it.

They definitely love it.

It definitely jumps right in.

But then the second verse, which is, again, we go back to Parnell talking to her, is, do you have a message for the kids?

Again, listeners, a lot of this is me going to be patting these guys on the back.

But this to me is a classic case of them knowing exactly how to heighten into the second verse.

I think a lot of people would take three verses to get to kids.

They don't waste any time.

Second verse, do you have a message for the kids?

Yeah.

I'm sorry, Natalie.

Are we to believe you condone driving while intoxicated?

I never said I was a role model.

But what about the kids that look up to you?

Do you have a message for them?

All the kids looking up to me can suck my dick.

It's put my mother.

Drink till I'm saving you.

Like if there's a message Natalie Portman wants everybody to hear, be they man or child,

suck my dick.

I do remember making sure the child left the room and not doing that line in front of the kid.

Yeah, we were respectful.

Not respectful to our audience, but to the kid that shot the part.

Yeah, not to the millions of kids who watch SNL either.

No, no, none of those kids.

Those kids were not spared.

We did note in the rundown, it played second to last.

So it was 12.55 probably when it aired.

Steps were taken.

Yeah.

Oh, it was right before the second song.

So it was probably 12.45.

Who's the musical guest?

Fallout Boy.

Hey, Fallout Boy.

Yeah.

Do you remember what happened?

Oh, what happened?

When they heard this song, they fell out.

Boy.

Oh, wow.

You guys blew the momentum.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, if I'd been able to deliver that right off.

Say it again.

Say it again.

We won't cut any of this.

I just want you to say it again.

Do you guys remember what happened when they heard Natalie rap?

They fell out.

Oh, man.

You stole it?

Sorry, I wasn't totally paying attention.

I would have maybe said, guys, remember what happened when Fallout Boys saw Natalie's rap?

What?

They fell out, boy.

Something like that.

Oh, boy.

Oh, you would have kept the boy alive.

Yeah, that's better.

Was it Fallout Boys?

No.

Singular.

Fallout Boy.

Okay.

It was just one of them.

You have to guess who it is.

Falls Out Boy.

You know, your Pearls Jam and your Falls Out Boy.

All right.

So now we get to a really nice thing where some gentlemen, I think Yorma, you're in this shot, right?

Yeah, I'm part of the gentleman that she wants to have sex with, I believe.

Oh, dude!

You know I'm talking to you.

We love you, Natalie.

I want to f you too.

It's a perfect.

Romantic.

She says very romantic.

I want to fuck.

We basically got a bunch of dorks from the SNL crew.

I noticed it was a real find the dorks.

Brian Tucker was in there.

John McDonald was in there.

I stepped in the last minute.

Yorma, yeah, they were like, we're one dork short, so we got to make an exception.

I mean, Yorma's a super cool dude, but I guess in a pinch, he could be.

Yeah, there was a dork shortage.

It was a stretch, but I managed.

By the way, the one thing there never was at SNL was a dork shortage.

No, it was the great dork shortage of 2006.

Oh, right.

All those dorks got snowed in.

Dino Badaya was one of the dorks.

There you go.

Oh, Charlie Grandi, was it dork?

Oh, yeah.

That line is also a, I don't know what you kind of call it, parody of NWA song Gangster Gangster.

No R's when they write it, but I don't feel comfortable saying the word gangster with an A at the end.

I think that's good.

I think that's for the best.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's for the best.

Yeah.

P is for Portman.

P is for, do you remember what the second P is for, guys?

For meow.

Yeah.

That was a nice instead of a beep.

I enjoyed that.

Then the wonderful verse about Harvard, which I feel like is my favorite moment of the song.

Wow.

Natalie, I'm surprised.

All this from a Harvard graduate.

Well, there's a lot you may not know about me.

Really?

Such as.

When I was in Harvard, I smoked weed every day.

I cheated every chance and sorted all the yay.

I got a deaf posse, you got a bunch of dudes.

I'll sit right dead on your face and take your s off.

See, now I feel like all the kids looking up to me can suck my dick and the Harvard verse are Keeve.

The Harvard verse is definitely.

but that's also a reference too right yeah you got a deaf posse and you got a bunch of dudes

sir mix a lot

most people just know baby got back but uh we were watching my posse on broadway on the box long before it came out we're the real deal guys it's true my posse on broadway is still the jam it's still a very good song who wrote this line do you guys remember i sit right down down on your face and take a shit.

Isn't it?

I sit right dead on your face.

I sit right down on your face

and take a shit.

It just gets real bald right at the end.

Yeah.

Don't remember too, but that sounds like something I would say.

Yeah.

I would have guessed Yorma or Andy on Take a Shit.

Yeah, it was one of us.

Yeah, it was one of us.

It was one of us.

I would guess that Andy wrote it, but he was quoting Yorm from real life.

It's ironic because that's what my kid says to to me all the time.

I'm always observing life and then using it in my work.

Yeah.

Andy always says everything is copy.

Man, that's kind of a Nora Efron slash Andy Samberg thing.

Yep.

Really applies here, I think.

Yeah.

And now another wonderful thing happens at this point in the song.

And I feel like this is your 13th show.

So I'm getting to know you gentlemen now.

It's March.

Met you in September on the show.

It's late in the song.

Andy shows up.

Oh, dear.

Dressed like a Viking.

Yeah.

Total nonsense.

I was talking to her good friend who's going to keep getting name-dropped in this podcast, Mike Shoemaker, who said he saw that and was in love.

He thought

the fact that you wore a Viking costume late in the song for no reason was what endeared him to you.

Whereas I remember when I saw my first reaction, I was a fucking Viking.

I got to say, I'm with you, Seth.

Like, I'm still sort of embarrassed about that choice.

But I'm never going to run from the fact that I was wrong a lot about your early work.

And this is one.

I will say you are, I've made peace with the Viking, but how does it happen?

I feel like the Viking was the thought process was something to the effect of like, well, it's got to be totally different than Lazy Sunday.

Like, honestly, it might be that stupid, you know?

And maybe also because I was singing and I knew I wasn't a good singer, that it was like a character.

I think it was that.

I think you were nervous about singing in the beginning.

Like, but if if it's this weird Viking guy, then we're just like, well, shit, who knows what his deal is.

Yeah, it's that it wasn't you.

It was to protect it a little.

Also, the first version we wrote was just all about Odin.

Oh, yeah.

Did you really?

No, there was nothing about Odin.

That would have made it make sort of sense.

I love that you're like, no, that would have been stupid.

I'm talking about he dressed like a Viking.

No, no.

I think it was we wanted it to be a character, and I thought that would be a fun look, basically.

It's not a bad look.

You do say, as for the drug use, I can vouch for that.

So maybe you're a drug guy.

So, here's the interesting thing about the Viking verse: one, I remember you were so deep in character, Andy.

Oh, yeah, full day-louis.

I remember seeing you, and I said, cool Viking costume, and you learned a little bit of ancient Norse.

I did, yeah.

Yeah, he just kept talking about Osgard and Odin and stuff, yeah, way ahead of the curve.

And this is before Thor was a hot movie, so nobody knew this stuff.

No, he just knew a lot of Norse mythology, guys.

This is for Thor.

This is for Thor.

Wait, you called before Thor for or yeah, it's four Thor IV.

This is before the fourth Thor movie.

This is four

Thor IV.

So keep in mind, this is fourth or four.

Yeah, right?

Yeah, this is four, fourth, four.

Nope, didn't you said it wrong?

Fourth, fourth, fourth, fourth rap.

Fourthor IV, Seth.

It's not rocket science.

Jeez.

Now, what I like about the Viking is he actually does some callbacks to the first verse of the song, which is, when Natalie said, I'm going to put my foot down your throat till you shit in my shoe.

Yeah.

And also that she would like you to pay for my dry cleaning.

Yeah.

And again, obviously she talks a lot about her drug use over the course of the song.

That's right.

So now the Viking shows up.

So he's been listening.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it's happened to him before.

It's happened to him.

It's experiential.

Yeah.

And it should be noted: the reason you pay for her dry cleaning is when my shit gets in your shoe.

Well, that's his fault, technically.

She's also done that.

And I guess you're getting her shoes dry cleaned.

I'm going to let that go.

I feel, obviously, you're a Viking from a different era.

They're like nice cloth or suede boots or something.

You got to take those to the dry cleaner.

Right.

In Viking times, shoes are basically just fabric.

Exactly.

You dry clean that.

But then this is the most Andy line.

I don't know if Andy wrote it, but it's the most Andy line of as for the drug use.

Well,

I can vouch for that.

Like I can vouch for that appearing this late in a song that is the filthiest line after the filthiest line after the filthiest line.

And then there's just this anodyne nonsense.

I'll say this.

That easily could have been any of the three of us in my mind.

That is just a lonely island type joke.

Yes.

So softball Jones.

Can I read it from genius.com?

Because that was the one that came up when I looked up the lyrics.

This is their explanation of that line.

Although many rappers will exaggerate to try and seem harder than they actually are, Natalie is an exception.

For Andy Samberg serves as a witness that can prove that Natalie is just as heavy on the drugs use as she claims she does.

Oh man, the costume didn't fool them at all.

They immediately knew

it was you.

Right.

Yeah.

They were like, that's not a Viking character.

That's Andy dressed like a Viking.

I like the fact that since we worked forward from Easy E, if we worked backwards, that at some point EZ E suggested, should we have someone come in late and vouch for me?

Yeah, I said I do a lot of drinking eight ball, but there's no proof.

Like, shouldn't we have a second source on this rap song?

And then someone said, E, you don't have to say rap song.

The Viking was essentially like a footnote.

Right.

Yeah.

It's like a singing footnote.

You would think that that would maybe be the coup de grace, the final cherry, but there really was one last very lonely island flourish.

You guys love Chris Parnell, and you gave him a beautiful gem at the end.

Okey-doke.

Natalie, one final question.

If you could steal a smooch from any guy in Hollywood, who would it

no more questions?

Do you guys know before I guess, do you know who wrote it?

I'm going to guess Keeve.

I want to guess Keeve too.

That's generous.

interesting keeve was maybe my last but steal a smooch and then she hits parnell with a chair and i believe no more questions is literally how the easy e one called no more questions ends right yeah yes and easy one more before we end this session what's your relief no more questions

One of the weirder things to me about this video was that they asked us to then put it onto the V for Vendetta Blu-ray DVD extras, and it is on there.

Yeah.

It's pretty random.

It doesn't have anything to do with...

No, V for Vendetta.

And V for Vendetta is a film adaptation of a famous Alan Moore graphic novel.

Alan Moore famously hates every adaptation of his work.

He doesn't believe any of them should have been anything but comic books.

He feels like a lot of times they've been misunderstood, the messages he's been trying to get across.

And yet, I heard him in an interview say, His favorite thing about V for Vendetta is this rap song was on the extras.

You had me.

I thought what you were going to say was a real thing.

I was so ready to be educated.

I was like, oh shit, here comes a real thing.

He was like, oh, I thought it was going to be zagged.

God damn it.

Hey, can we take a quick trip to Seth's Corner?

Yeah.

Please,

Seth's Corner, you're all invited.

Seth's Corner, it's happening right now.

Take it with it.

Puck in Seth's Corner.

Fuck that guy.

Fuck that go.

A real collaborating week for me and Keeve's now bride, Liz.

And this is going to happen a lot.

I know a lot of our listeners are going to think there's some funny business.

I went to college with Keeve's wife, and then we worked together at a comedy theater in Amsterdam.

And then we were at SNL.

This is all, and no matter how many kids Keeve has with her and how long they're a married couple, I knew her first.

You were first.

Yeah.

You cannot change the fact that I was friends.

Yeah.

By a long time, you knew her first.

Was there ever tension?

Come on.

We're shock jocks.

Oh, hello.

I thought this was Seth Corner.

This is not shock jock time.

This is Seth's corner.

You keep your shock jocks out of my corner.

You guys ever do drugs?

Be real, then.

So Liz and I wrote Jamba Juice.

Jamba Juice is about some really amped up employees at a Jamba Juice.

This is when everybody was talking about Jamba Juice.

First sketch out of the monologue, too.

You guys were always in that sweet spot.

A top-heavy Meyer show really breaks my heart because I feel like the sketches that come first should be the ones that are remembered more.

And yet here we are talking about the second to last sketch in the show, 15 years later.

Yeah.

I'm taking this to Lorne.

I think the sketch I'm proudest of in this show actually aired after Natalie's rap called Smoke Alarm.

Do you guys remember my commercial parody, Smoke Alarm?

No, I feel bad.

I remember there being one, but I forget what the joke is.

No, I get it.

And I should note, I think it already aired in a different show.

This is a re-air of a commercial parody.

It was in the Lance Armstrong show.

So can I just read you the beginning of Smoke Alarm?

Yes, please.

Shot of suburban home, tracking shot through a dark suburban house, through rooms and hallways.

Smoke begins to appear.

Higgins, V.O.

Smoke.

When you're sleeping, there's no way to know what's in the air.

In your home, around your children.

So the two questions you need to ask yourself are, do you value the safety of your family?

And do you love the 80s?

Light on the the smoke detector goes on.

Electric Avenue by Eddie Manplace.

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Now,

I pulled the original script and it breaks my heart because then it cuts to Fred and Parnell.

And Parnell is sort of a best of the 80s CD pitch man.

And Fred is Officer Peter Vanelli of the New York City Fire Department.

But in the original script, it's me and Fred.

So that means I wrote a script for a commercial parody and somewhere along the lines, a sketch I wrote.

You got taken out.

And replaced with Chris Parnell.

Sad truth for the better.

So I can't argue about it.

No, no.

What do you think the reasoning given to you was?

That he didn't have enough in the show or did it have to shoot at 6 a.m.

and you were required somewhere else for update?

I don't know.

This might be something that just out of the pain that I was feeling at the time that I've closed off that trauma.

But I do think it might have been.

Higgins or someone saying, this is a really perfect Parnell part.

And it really is.

So I hold no ill will.

I will say very hard to see online because why do you guys think it's hard to see online?

Oh, yeah.

The music.

The rights to the music.

Music clearance.

It's all about the songs.

You can't clear Electric Avenue.

I mean, you could clear it, but they wouldn't pay for it.

Right.

So ultimately, if you're ever looking for an old SNL sketch that has pre-existing music and you can't find it, it's not been taken down because of some, you know, nefarious reason.

It's just expensive and nobody wants to pay that money.

We are going to come up against this problem a few times on this podcast.

Yeah, we are.

Should we write like a sort of placeholder song that we play when you guys run into some music clearance issues?

Sure.

Okay, great.

So, you guys do that.

No problem.

Get working on that.

Hey, one of my favorite sketches of all time was Cut After Dress.

Do you remember the collector sketch where Natalie worked in a sort of like a comic book shop that had a lot of collectible toys?

And Fred and Horatio came in as toy collectors and only spoke Spanish.

All right, take care.

Hey, guys, do you speak Spanish?

No, no, I'm sorry, I I don't.

No, no, I don't speak Spanish.

But hold on, I say, hey, Kerman, can you come out here for a sec?

Give me a hand.

Hey, you speak Spanish, right?

Oh, okay, sure.

Hola, que tad ne sita nayuda.

Ah, bueno eso es mejo.

Dadonde son.

Semondo collectores de Costa Rica.

Homo tico de la Costa.

Muy bien.

They're toy collectors from Costa Rica.

Oh, cool.

You guys came a long way, huh?

Con queero puedo vaudadar.

Oh, de la vera here.

Pero ver.

Tabo un baman con joker.

Okay.

Oh, tami una leather fate del teti cheso másacar.

Okay.

Pero

tun tami farlen spond.

Okay, pero tomi far el en spond di en mucho.

Pua quiere eso.

Oh, dame el payaso de pôn.

He wants the clown from Swan, okay?

Okay.

Ah, que más.

Para mi es

Freddy Krueger nightmare on Elme 3.

Alright.

They were just ordering every boxed toy collectible

in Spanish, and Natalie spoke Spanish.

And so the whole sketch was Fred saying, like,

uno a Todd McFarlane Ethpon.

The whole sketch was a list

of them just pointing.

Oh, God.

Had to get that McFarlane spawn.

Todd McFarlane Ethpon.

And

you know those Beatles, the yellow submarine Beatles collectibles?

Yes, yeah.

I believe a joke was they wanted all three of those, but not Ringo.

Man, no Ringo, no Ringo, no Ringo.

And then she rang them up and they stacked up everything they named.

They actually had a real one.

They've gone to like a comic book store and bought everything.

And they stacked them up.

And Natalie then read them all back.

Right.

The whole sketch was just them saying it and then her reading it back.

And I will say, a thing I also remember is Sudakis was working the register and and was doing this thing where he's really dancing.

It was like one of those old push-button registers.

And he was making a real meal.

A lot of clacks.

Of ringing it.

A lot of clacks.

Yeah.

And then it came out to like $1,500.

And you guys remember the payoff of the sketch?

Wow, $27.

No, no, sorry.

$7,423.

That's a lot of money for toys.

Como quiar en bagad.

No te

What's up?

They don't have any money.

No es que lunca tenemos dinero.

They never have any money.

They were very, very embarrassed and just shrugged.

They were very apologetic that they didn't have any money.

I should note that Natalie, when she was on my show, I mentioned that sketch, and she also did not have any memory of it.

Which is a really funny thing.

That's surprising because if you're just hosting, that should be a pretty memorable week.

Yeah, but I think the ones that get cut, you might not remember.

Because you have to forget them.

Yeah.

I'm speaking as a one-time host.

Right.

No, Andy, you and I are both in the one-timers club.

Well, also, you only rehearse it like three times, so that makes sense.

One-timers club, yeah.

You get the jacket.

You get a little hanky.

Okay.

Can we give a shout out to my brother for making the beat for Natalie's rap, right?

Didn't my brother make the beat for that?

Yeah.

Asa Tacone

of electric guest that was one of his beats i love that beat it's tight yeah people used to say tight back in the day i should note can i go back i think we're still legally in seth's corner so i'm allowed to do this oh yeah yeah sorry to interrupt then no no i just want to say that dratch plays an old woman in the fire alarm and gloria by laura branigan plays while smoke fills the bedroom and dratch gives a real perfect dratch read where she pops her head up and says i love this

we could talk a teeny bit if we are permitted to leave Seth's corner.

Yes.

The exit door to Seth's corner is now open.

I just remember when this came out that now we knew YouTube existed.

Lazy Sunday had been on there and taken off.

And this was the second big thing that had some traction that came out.

And we immediately went to YouTube to see if somebody had put it there.

It was still well before NBC would put something there or that even we would think about it.

So sure enough, some random person had put it up.

And I remember it had like 500,000 views by Monday, which by that point was an insane amount to get in one day.

And then NBC took it down right away and just buried it deep.

We were upset at the time that we were being asked to make things that were viral and then quarantine them.

They weren't even quarantining them yet because NBC.com still didn't have video and Hulu didn't even exist.

Yeah, you're right.

They just took them down.

I guess they were quarantining it to NBC reruns.

For future Hulu use.

Yes.

That was the discussion of like, we are beholden to the people who have paid for the syndication rights.

Right.

It was like in breach of like deals with the affiliates and stuff, syndication deal.

Yeah.

How quickly was Hulu in the works for them?

I mean, it must have been immediately, like, as soon as YouTube was happening, they were like, How can we do our own version of this?

I think it was more just nbc.com, but it was still years before that came in.

There was a long time where they were telling us, oh, yeah, and promote nbc.com.

Right.

And we'd be like, great.

And we went to nbc.com to try and watch the videos and they just wouldn't load.

We're like, I think I'm going to tell people to watch it on YouTube.

Now, this also not only opens the door for celebrities rapping for the next two decades, but you're going to have more people showing up who want to do a digital short now.

This is now part of your future of making these.

And we'll keep a running power ranking, but obviously right now, Natalie, and she might hold the spot for a long time, is the top host in a digital short power rankings.

Definitely.

I mean, this was our first really successful one after Lazy Sunday, right?

That's how I remember it.

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure.

That's how I i remember it too and i remember feeling huge relief that it went over so big because there was the lazy sunday expectation on them a little now and we were like shit we did another song and people really liked it again that was cool don't want to be a one-hit wonder i don't know if anybody ever topped her though in terms of like a digital short having a celebrity to come in and be the star of it well i would argue that christmas of next year that was a pretty big one yes

that's still a two-hander you know oh i see what you mean well so is this don't forget about viking guy who is a character oh right the The Viking.

Oh, yeah.

Viking Guy.

The second hand.

The famed second hand of Natalie rapp.

The footnote asterisk guy.

Yeah, you're right.

Hey, I have been sent the script to the collectors, and I was wrong about Ringo.

I apologize.

They did want Ringo.

Dummy out fat bastard Dosten Powell.

Dummy on Jim Brewer goboy.

And then Natalie was super happy with the way it went.

You guys, can I tease our next digital short before we go?

I don't know why you have to pick on it.

I like that.

Thanks, George.

Thanks, sir.

It's back-to-back for Myers.

Doppelganger's up.

Oh, shit.

Doppplegangers.

Yeah, to the well.

I mean, I'm in back-to-back digital shorts.

I will tell you that after Doppelganger, my assumption is I'm going to be in most of them.

Especially because we're such good friends, which we are.

Yeah.

You'd think, yeah.

Yeah.

Mainstay, primary cast.

Without having re-watched it, I'm going to say doppelganger holds up pretty good.

I would guess as much.

Yeah, well, we'll see next week.

I mean, like, doppelganger is a pretty enticing title for our listeners.

You guys, this has been episode six of the Lonely Island and Seth Meyers podcast, where they get into the weeds about specific episodes of their digital shorts.

And the weeds of life.

Episodes of their digital shorts.

That's the whole title.

He's just reading the title.

That's the whole title.

Where they get into the weeds about episodes of their digital shorts.

Look, you signed off on it.

No, sorry.

I'm reading.

There's a question mark at the end.

That's.

Oh, yeah.

All right.

I love you guys.

Love you, buddy.

Love you.

Have a good week.

Bye.

Bye.